There’s always room at the table for the course you’re planning on creating. If you wish a course existed in a certain type of format or with a specific topic, chances are someone else wishes it existed too. In this episode, Krissy Chins shares why you should not be afraid to start writing and building your own course. It may be true that hundreds if not thousands of courses exist already but Krissy is here to share why your ideas matter. Tune in as she also discusses how you can build your own course using her new tool.

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Make Your Wish: How To Decide What Your Course Should Be About

Let's talk about deciding what your course should be about. I want to start off this episode by making this statement. You should write the course that you want to exist. Let's keep going and diving deeper into that to help you get some clarity on what you should be writing your course about. It's perfectly acceptable to build the course that you wish existed when you were learning how to do that thing that you teach or that you wish existed right now for you. All great products and businesses started because someone created something that they wished existed. I will forever remember a show that I was watching years ago, and it was about million-dollar ideas. It took ten different businesses and showcase their ideas, and then the success that their businesses had had.

One will always stick out to me because it was then that I had the epiphany that so many great businesses start because someone is trying to create something that they wished existed, something that will make their life easier. There was one guy who was bald. He entered the TV screen and started talking about the hassles he had with shaving his head. He was bald on top but had hair on the sides. He was like, “I just wanted to go bald but it was such a pain to shave my head. I always remember rubbing my hand past my head and wishing there was a razor where I could fit it in the palm of my hand and I could rub my hand over my head, or almost brush my hand over my head and it would shave my head. Since it didn't exist, I'm going to create it.” He targeted bald men who shaved their heads and it worked. He had this million-dollar idea, but what was he doing? He was just trying to make his life easier. He was like, “There are other people out there that want this too, or could take advantage of this.” He presented it and had a million-dollar idea. He found a need for it, he thought other people might find it valuable as well and it was successful.

My dad is such a great example of someone who creates based on necessity or making their life easier. He was always creating and inventing things to make his life and the people's lives around him easier. From very simple things to more complicated things in terms of when he was in a motorcycle accident, he broke his collar bone. He was in this big sling. He couldn't lay down. He made this contraption over his bed. I don't know how he did it with one arm, but he made this to be able to pulley himself up and sit up. He was always in this mindset.

All great products and businesses started because someone created something that they wished existed.

I remember even the simplest things of him telling me about when he was a pharmacist, he had to put the pills into the little pill pouches that would then get sent out to people with your 30 days of pills. He had to put the pills in those pouches. He was like, “I was always dropping pills in other little pouches.” He made this cardboard and it had a little hole in it. He could put it over and the hole would be right over the pouch he needed to slide the pills into. He could slide them right in and then slide it over. The next empty pouch would be available for him to slide the pills into. Did he ever take that to market? No, but it’s this little simple thing to make his life easier, more efficient, or be able to work more efficiently in his life.

One of my ultimate favorites that he created was a mailbox slag. I wanted so badly to take this to market with him because I wanted it. I was like, “I need that.” I never got a chance to get one before he passed but maybe I'll have to go look at his design on his mailbox and take it and do my own. He had this idea that he needed to create this life. Let me paint the picture for you. We lived on a hill. It wasn't a big hill when we were growing up. If you mailed something out, you put the flag up on your mailbox if you have a traditional mailbox that sits in front of your house. You put the flag up so the mail person knows that you've got mail that's being sent out. When they come, they put that flag down.

That way, you know that you have mail if the flag was up and now it's down, you know the mail person came. What if you didn't mail something? How would you know that the mail came or better yet, how would you know if your partner already got the mail? Maybe you know your mail comes around 12:00 and you get home from work at 5:00 from running around or picking up the kids from school. You're like, “The mail should be here,” but then what if someone else was home and they picked up the mail? You're going down to the mailbox and checking even though someone else did. That happens all the time in my house because there are multiple adults. Most of the time, no one gets the mail. One time I walk all the way down my steep driveway, open it up, and I'm like, “Someone got the mail.”

I always think of my dad's mailbox flag. His idea was that the flag is attached to the top of the mailbox. It's spring-loaded down with a little latch on the door of the mailbox. That flag sits tucked under that little latch. When the mail person opens the mailbox, that flag gets released and it springs up. They put the mail in and then there's a flag up that says, “The mail has arrived.” When someone goes to get the mail, they have to reset the flag. He would know if my mom got the mail because she would reset the flag. He would either know no mail has come or someone got the mail and reset the flag. It's super helpful.

I remember he always said that the neighbor always would look out to see if his flag was up or down to know if the mail came, but then she wouldn't know if he got the mail, reset it, and it would look like it didn't come anyway. It was out of his own necessity to make his life a little bit simpler. He did not have to go down to the mailbox if he didn't need to so he invented this mailbox flag. You can buy those out on Amazon. It wasn't original or maybe other people had thought about it after. Another example is he also had a double dog leash. He ended up getting that patented. He wanted a better way to walk his dogs so that he could have both of the dogs move freely without tugging on one another. He didn't want to have to deal with retractable leashes. He created his own. He was more hands-on in creating these physical products to make his life easier. He wasn't in this digital space.

You can see that solutions to common problems can be lucrative because they're common problems, which means that a lot of people are looking for that solution. If you were going on Shark Tank and they were looking for solutions to problems that the masses would want. You can be successful, even providing a solution for a niche audience. In 2016, I wanted a resource for my essential oils business, where I could direct people of different specialties, chiropractors, massage therapists, nurses and teachers. I wanted these different industries to be able to learn from someone in their industry about oils and then about the oils business. Since it didn't exist, I took the responsibility of creating it. I had no intentions of monetizing the group. I gathered all the people I needed to make this happen, the chiropractors, the nurses, the teachers and the massage therapists.

I opened it up for free and I said, “Here, use this resource.” Selfishly, I want this for my team. Collaboratively, we all created it. It was something that others found value in. Others apparently had the same problem I did and we're looking for the solution. The group grew to over 45,000 people in about a month and they had access to this information. I was creating something that I wished had existed selfishly for my business and that's okay. Fast forward, I created resources that I wished had existed for my community. Once again, business training, marketing materials, and so did others, other people wanted this. I uploaded it into Kajabi. I stuck a price tag on it. We sold it and people loved it.

Don’t be afraid to put something out there that already exists. Nothing is original.

What I want you to do is to create the course that you wish existed. I always say create what the people want, but you are the people too. You were your ideal client. Think about the person that you are teaching. That person that you once were, maybe you're now 3 steps or 10 steps ahead of them. What course do you wish had been in existence when you got started? Build a Blissful Business is a perfect example. It's my course about setting up the foundation of your brand and your business so that you can attract your ideal clients on social media online. This is a compilation of all the best and most important things that I learned over five years of building multiple businesses. It's what I wish I had access to when I was starting out.

It would've saved me years of trial and error and fast-tracked my success. I was like, "People need this. People who are starting out don't have any formal training on building a business, branding and marketing themselves. They need this course,” and so I created it. It's a course about how to create a profitable course. It's all the most important things that I have learned over the years, creating and selling courses and gives you the most simplified, actionable steps to go from idea to launching. Does something like that exist? Sure. I've bought courses like this from some of the best people like Amy Porterfield. There are things that I have learned and I've done differently than what she teaches that I find maybe were more effective for me in my audience.

There is room at the table for my course just like there's room at the table for your course. If you want a water bottle, how many options do you have to choose from? There isn't just one water bottle, the first water bottle that was created and then everyone else said, “It's been created so we're not going to create one.” No, you have a million options to choose from. Maybe you choose because of functionality. This one has a straw and you love that. This one has a closable lid that won't leak water out so you can toss it in your bag. It can be upside down. Maybe you choose based on function or look. This one look trendy. This one looks like my brand colors. It will look perfect in my videos or pictures.

It’s the same with courses. Maybe you choose my course because you love learning from me here on the show. You feel like I get great, simple and actionable steps and so you know that I'll do the same inside my course. Maybe you choose mine because you vibe with my style and it's similar to yours. You want to be able to get an example of what it could be like for you. Don't be afraid to put something out there that already exists. Nothing is original. I got done reading a book called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. By reading, I mean listening to, because I don't have time to sit down and read. I push play when I'm in my car or when I'm doing things. It's about an hour so it's not that long of a book. It's all about stealing like an artist, and talks about that nothing is original, and the best artists learned from other greats.

They take the best pieces and they make their own masterpiece. Learn from the greats, take the best pieces of what I and your other mentors say. Mesh it together with the process that you come up with. You have this new process that you can teach and create a course on. Before the Build A Profitable Course, I would take private clients and I would help them take what they do one-on-one and turn it into a digital course that they could serve the masses and scale their business. It's hard to scale one-on-one work because you only have so much time in the day.

The first part of our coaching is I would teach them all about branding and building their presence online. If they already had a brand, we would go through that and say, "Do we need to modify things now that you're evolving into this digital space?" I would give my private clients access to the Build a Blissful Business course so that they could do the lessons and the homework in there, and then we could focus more and go deeper in our private sessions. Once we got through that for the first few weeks of our private sessions, we dove into building their profitable course. I kept thinking to myself, “I wish I had a course so that I could teach and then assign the lessons, and they could go refer to that along the way.” We could do even more in these private sessions because they would be learning the principles in my course and how to do it.

We could reserve our meeting time for looking at their completed work for helping fine-tune it, which we would do in private sessions, but it would take a little bit longer. They could do more things and learn more on their own time. My schedule got full and I couldn't take any more private clients. I still had people messaging me and asking me about courses, “I want to create a course. I'm struggling with this. Can you help me with that? What about pricing? What about setting it up? What platform should I use, Kajabi?” I thought, “I wish I had a course that I could refer them to so that they could get all of my golden nuggets still even though I can't take them on as a private right now, or maybe private coaching wasn't in their budget.” I still wanted to be able to help them. A course would be that option.

It was a course that I wish existed so that I could use it with people. One day I woke up and I said, “Krissy, it's time to make space in your schedule to make that course that you wish existed so that you can help more people create the course that they wish existed. If you are interested in building a profitable course, hop over to BuildAProfitableCourse.com. That website will help you get started. It is so worth it. No more wondering what the next step is or second-guessing. I lay it out step-by-step. I help you through outlining your course, building your course, and setting it up so you can go to market and launch your course. All of this is to say that it's time for you to build the course that you wish existed and that your community wish existed as well.

If there's a mutual wishing of existence between you and your community, you have landed on a gold mine. As always, it has been a pleasure hanging out with you. Whether you're listening on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or any other podcast platform, hit that subscribe button, leave a review and let me know what have you found valuable out of this episode. If you're watching on YouTube, tell me in the comments about your course. Tell me about the course that you wish existed, that you plan to create. I cannot wait to see your little ideas in those messages. If a friend needs to know this, pass this episode along and I will see you next episode.

Important Links:

• Kajabi
• Build a Blissful Business
• Steal Like an Artist
• BuildAProfitableCourse.com
• Apple Podcast – Badass is the New Black
• Spotify – Badass is the New Black
• YouTube – Badass is the New Black
• https://www.TheKrissyChin.com/Profit